LITCHFIELD >> Superintendent Deborah Wheeler presented her proposal for the 2014-15 education budget Wednesday night. The $16,617,997 proposal would be a increase of $759,542, or 4.79 percent, the 2013-14 spending plan.

From here, the Board of Education will tweak the proposed budget and are scheduled to vote to adopt it at the Feb. 19 regular meeting. The board can extend this deadline to March 5. On March 17, the Board of Finance will review the budget, with the town budget hearing scheduled for April 23. The annual town budget meeting will be held May 7.

The 2013-14 adopted budget for the Board of Education was a 1.32 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, totaling just under $16 million with $206,794 in new spending.

Wheeler called her presentation Wednesday a “working draft.”

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“Yes, that is high. No one is going to debate that,” Wheeler said of the 4.79 increase that her proposed budget shows. “Yes, we have a lot of work to do to look at this and determine what the final board’s budget will look like when it is adopted.”

Improving the district’s technology program is a key facet of the budget proposal. The new multi-year lease for Dell Venue 11 tablets accounts for $68,000 in the proposed budget. Wheeler’s budget also puts a priority on increasing wireless capacity outside the high school at both Litchfield Center School and Litchfield Intermediate School. Overall, the technology program accounts for $91,000.

The budget would expand the preschool program, effectively doubling its size with the addition of a teacher at an estimated cost of $44,000. Wheeler mentioned that a title grant the district received was increased by $20,000. That money would be put towards this new position.

Continuing regional collaboration with both Region 6 and Torrington and maintaining reasonable class size are two priorities in the proposed budget. Based on enrollment, the district would look to eliminate one section of kindergarten, one section of grade two and one section of grade four.

These three staff reductions, along with a retirement would save the district $101,000, even including two positions that would be added within this budget. The first addition is the above mentioned pre-school teacher, the second a school social worker for the entire district. Reductions in utilities and professional services would save $16,600.

Nearly $13,000 of the $16,617,997 total is made up of salaries and benefits, which account for over 76 percent of the overall budget. The new food service program with Chartwells is $45,000 and a new mathematics program in grades kindergarten through five that aligns with the Common Core State Standards would cost $60,000.

The current budget proposal presentation, in its entirety, is available on www.litchfieldschools.org under Litchfield Schools Finance. An in-depth, line item look at the proposed budget is available in the same section.